


you reminded me (that it's such a wonderful thing to love)

by pieandsouffle



Category: Mortal Engines (2018), Mortal Engines Series - Philip Reeve
Genre: (attempted humour anyway), Book Character Descriptions, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Humour, PLOTLESS RUBBISH, Post Medusa, a month or two after the events of the book, book canon, intended only to release my feelings, pre predator's gold, remember that scene in the book where hester eats a frog? yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 01:22:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17234768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pieandsouffle/pseuds/pieandsouffle
Summary: Hester isn't used to to living this far from the edge. She's not used to having money and an airship and food that's more than just simple nutrition. She's not used to a real, living human being staying by her side.She's not used to Tom, but she wants to be.





	you reminded me (that it's such a wonderful thing to love)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a dumb thing I started writing before the movie came out, but I'm so angry about certain parts of the movie that I couldn't help posting this.

“I’m going to buy some food.”

They’re standing in an air-harbour, somewhere in the middle of a long queue leading to a desk where a grumpy looking woman is accepting payment for fuel. Hester’s cringing a little at the cost as she counts out coins in her palms, but it’s necessary: the landing permit is only for the rest of the day and the _Jenny_ is running almost purely on the smell of an oily rag.

She looks up from the money at the sound of Tom’s voice; he’s standing there awkwardly, a little duck-footed because they've been flying for a long time and he isn’t quite used to being on a firm deck-plate yet. He’s fidgeting something terrible, folding and refolding a scrap of paper in his hands in his familiar nervous way.

She wonders if Tom has ever spent a moment of his life _not_ being nervous.

“Alright,” she says. “What’s that?”

He shows her a scrap of paper covered in lines of curling scribbles. She marvels, briefly, at the consistency and complete illegibility of his handwriting. Hester knows that _technically_ Tom has very good handwriting, but it’s so neat, and curly, and perfect, that any normal person finds it impossible to read.

It’s a list of some sort, and if writing down everything they don’t have or a running short of isn’t a Tom thing to do, she doesn’t know what is. But she won’t tease him for it. They haven’t bought anything since they first … inherited the _Jenny_. She filters through what they’ve run out of, and decides the list is _probably_ about food. An absence of food is normally equivalent to death, so it’s a reasonable guess.

“Do you like eggs?” he asks, tapping a short, squiggly line on the list, confirming her suspicions. “I don’t really, but they’re a good source of protein and they’ll last a few weeks if we keep them in Anna’s cooler box.”

She knows this. She knows this very well, but the way he says it is so alien she stares at him anyway. “A good source of _protein_?”

He flushes. He looks prettier when he does that. When his face goes all pink and his eyes squint (as he made sure to mention multiple times) because he left his glasses in the Apprentice Historian Third Class dormitories the morning he interfered in a stabbing and changed their lives, and his eyes just aren't used to seeing things this close … yes, that’s one of his nicest looks. “We need to eat well to stay healthy,” he explains in a rush, face burning red as if it’s excruciatingly embarrassing to be caught out as an educated person. His fingers twist into the cuff of his jacket. “We can’t live off Out-Country frogs and vegetable goo. We’ll get ill. And _you_ especially need to eat lots because your leg isn’t properly better and it won’t heal right if you don’t.”

He’s right once again. Hester still finds anything faster than a steady walk painful.

Tom is ridiculously aware of her injury, at all times. Paranoid, in fact. She made the mistake of rubbing it absently as the _Jenny_ drifted back to the Black Island. Her hand had bled from the shattered glass in the cabin, but all Tom saw was a smear of blood across her trouser leg, and immediately panicked. He was in near hysterics until she proved the wound hadn’t been reopened, and that it was her palm that was bloodied up. She blames the reaction on what must have been a concussion; he had a big gash on his forehead, but even when that was healing up she caught him looking at the bandage on her leg with a touching level of anxiety.

And her thigh _is_ getting better, but even standing for too long makes it ache right down to the bone. _Everything_ makes it ache: cold weather, walking, lying down, standing up, bending her knee,  talking too loudly … it’s annoying, and draws more attention to her. People’s eyes get drawn to the limp, and they always, _always_ , migrate up towards her face and then their attention is firmly stuck. The shawl makes people curious. The scar drives them away.

But funnily enough, Tom is still by her side, list held loosely in his hand.

 “Alright,” she says. “I suppose you have some fancy London health diet planned out then?”

“Meat, cheese, fruit, vegetables and eggs,” he recites immediately. “And water,” he adds, almost as an afterthought. “Water is essential.”

“I don’t like how frogs aren’t included.”

It’s meant only as a joke, but she isn’t used to telling them and it comes out sounding very, very literal. Tom frowns, and replies, “They’re frogs. They’re not food.”

“They eat frogs in Paris.”

“But that – that’s _Paris_. Everyone knows they’re nutters.”

“Why do you Londoners hate Paris so much? And anyway, Anna made toad-in-the-hole. And I love eating frogs. Best when raw. Delicious.”

Frogs are the most disgusting thing she’s ever eaten, _especially_ when they’re raw, but the grimace on Tom’s face is worth the lie. Her face creases beneath the veil, and it takes her a moment to remember that’s what it feels like to smile. When the scar healed it hurt too badly to do anything but eat and mumble. Smiling is not yet comfortable: it pulls at the hardened, knobbly scar tissue and drags the taut skin of her cheek. It doesn’t _hurt_ per se, but it’s not an expression she can retain for long. Her smile disappears very quickly, but she still _feels_ smiley, so that’s good, isn’t it?

Tom’s brows are scrunched together, appalled, but then he laughs, and if that isn’t a sound she loves she doesn’t know what is. “You’re making fun of me,” he says.

“I’m not.”

“You _are_.”

“I would _never_. Don’t knock raw frog until you’ve tried it.”

He laughs in revolted glee. Then his face grows serious again, and she _knows_ he’s about to say something about the dangers of eating raw food so she interrupts him before he can start.

“Well, I’ll follow this stupid frog-free diet if it’ll make you feel better. But the second I’m well enough, we’re stocking the _Jenny_ up with frogs. Go buy the food.”

He smiles again, and makes to move off, but he hesitates. Thinks for a second, then darts in to press a kiss to her cheek through the veil and runs off.

Hester stands there, rooted to the deck-plate. Her brain’s fizzled out for the moment, and she can’t remember what she’s doing there, what her name is, just that Tom _kissed_ her, until the annoyed woman at the counter irritably asks her if she’s going to pay for her fuel. Hester throws a handful of Anna’s coins on the countertop, scowls, and runs off to find Tom. That kiss really did stun her silly; weren’t there a good twenty people in front of her in that queue?

She heads for the food markets, and finds him in a state of pained contemplation, standing in front of a market-stall selling –

Frogs.

Actual, honest-to-badness frogs. Pickled frogs. Dried frogs. And an assortment of other froggish delicacies, and the look on his face nearly makes her wet herself with holding back her laughter.

“Tom,” she manages, exceedingly proud that her voice has no trace of the hysteria she feels inside. “What are you doing?”

He looks up from his fatalistic studying of the frogs and replies, in a voice of absolute resignation, “Look, we can get some as long as you don’t eat them raw – ”

This is too much. She can’t physically control the _whoop_ of laughter that escapes her with such irrepressible force it nearly sends her veil flying away. A Nuevo-Mayan family flinch back in alarm. She doesn’t care.

“What?” Tom asks. His mouth is curled in a confused half-smile. She laughs so rarely that he can’t help it, even in a state of absolute bewilderment.

 “Tom, frogs are _disgusting_. A last resort food. If you buy some I will make you eat every single one on your own.” She gestures towards a particularly foul looking one, bloated and floating in a greenish jar.

“Oh, good,” Tom says, looking categorically relieved. His face does that thing where the corners of his mouth quirk up and make his cheeks look softer. It’s such a nice look that Hester can’t stop herself from taking his hand – the one not occupied with a bag of other, less horrible foodstuffs – and squeezing it.

He smiles at her, and squeezes back.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm _really_ unsure how to write Hester. Tom is easy, Hester is not.


End file.
